Are you a feminist? Why or why not?

That word means so many things. A common, smug definition is "The belief that men and women should be equal" the implication being that if you are not a feminist then you must not want women to be equal to men, which is a gross oversimplification of the issues feminism is concerned with.

One would think the notion of equality is intuitively obvious but it's never clear what is meant. There is equality of outcomes and equality of opportunity, and there is the pervasive belief that if outcomes are not equal, it must be because there is some kind of discrimination.

I'm tired of the stupid, sanctimonious games people play when they want to guilt you into accepting their point of view. I'm not going to identify as feminist for two reasons, first being as I said the word means so many different things, and second being the loud mouthed, sanctimonious jerks who call themselves feminists and from whom I want to be as far away from as possible.

I accept for certain things in society, you have a harder time as a women, and other things you have a harder time as a man. I don't think every little inequality between genders justifies us trying to pass laws and raise awareness. Life is not fair, some big things are worth changing, but for every thing you try to be compassionate about and raise awareness, there will be people left in the dark who no one is raising awareness for. You care about X issue? Good for you, don't tell me I'm a bad person for not caring.

/r/AskMen Thread